Possibilities of play
An insight into a virtual process drama journey
Akhila Khanna and Devika Bedi
Six pairs of beady eyes sat squirming before their screens while parents adjusted their video and audio settings. Intermittent clanging of pots, colourful curtains and furrowed eyebrows welcomed us into the minds and homes of the six children we would be working with over the next month. This was how we greeted our first group of giggly 5-year-olds who had signed up for the drama classes that we – Aagaaz Theatre – were conducting on Zoom.
About Aagaaz
Aagaaz Theatre is an arts based organization in New Delhi dedicated to creating inclusive learning spaces that nurture curiosity and critical thought. Our drama-based processes encourage safe spaces for dialogue to weave a more equitable urban fabric. Drama teacher Dorothy Heathcote had once said, “In drama we experience an ‘as if’ world and at the same time create the means of reflecting on existence.” This is fundamental to Aagaaz’s process – we are consistently striving to bridge this gap between ‘What is’ and ‘What can be’. When the pandemic hit, we were forced to engage with this principle in a very real way.
| What is… | What can be… |
| It’s not safe for audiences to gather in-person for our workshops and performances. | How can we interact with them using drama-based processes within the comforts of their homes? |
| Our facilitators living in Nizamuddin Basti need funds to continue in-person work. | How can we generate revenue using our skills as drama facilitators? |
| Our audiences who have access to technology are spending most of their days online. | Is there a way to create engagement that is not limited to the online medium? |
| Physical connection and in-person can put people at-risk. | How do we foster and create connections within the boundaries of screens and homes? |
| Our practices as a collective are grounded in creativity, imagination and inclusivity. | How can we keep these principles alive within all the limitations?! |
| People living in their homes are feeling more isolated. | How can we stay true to our mission of understanding the ‘other’ through virtual engagements? |
We found the answer in a month-long process drama journey with six pre-primary children and us – Akhila and Devika – as the facilitators. Process Drama is a mode of learning that allows both the learners of any age and teachers to use imagined roles to explore issues, events, and relationships. These roles help to create a dramatic space that resembles the world of pretend play that children indulge in when left to themselves. However, the structures created around a facilitated ‘class’, especially on an online platform can make ‘pretending’ a little more challenging. Entering a space of imagination is only possible, when all the players consent to it. How could we as facilitators create a Process Drama class in the virtual space that encourages children to play along?
The lesson plan
We wanted our Process Drama structure to echo the relationship between ‘What is’ and ‘What can be’ to better understand connections between ‘self’ and ‘society’. We decided to work with challenges and stories that exist within the real world to offer familiarity and a strengthening of this connection:
Week 1: Meet Flippy the Farmer who needs our help to plant seeds.
Week 2: We head to the market where Suri the Seller needs to sell fruits and vegetables.
Week 3: We enter the community kitchen where Bobby the Bavarchi is plating dishes.
Week 4: It’s a Food Mela! Flippy, Suri and Bobby are coming with their friends to visit our stalls and taste the different food items we have prepared.
That our characters were well defined and served a very specific function opened the window of imaginative play. Each character represented real life situations, problems and emotions.
Introducing teacher-in-role
Cecily O’Neill, an international authority on Process Drama, suggests that the adult should participate from within the creative process, as co-artist with his/her pupils, rather than remain on the outside of the world as facilitator or manipulator. This strategy, also called teacher-in-role, allows both the participants and the facilitators to play a role in the drama. While Akhila always played the teacher-in-role, switching between the characters of Flippy, Suri and Bobby, Devika played the constant auxiliary role, joining the children (in role) as farmers, sellers, and chefs as they weaved through the imagined drama. In both roles, we were constantly reflecting and acting with the children on the real time problems of the drama.
In Week 2 when we switched on our videos and ‘entered’ the market, Suri the Seller peered into the camera:
“Oh wow, I see many more customers than we had expected,” claimed Suri in surprise, her face magnified on the screen.
“Yes, the customers in my room! I see them!” shouted Manya, one of our most poised (or relatively composed) 5-year-olds, exaggerating her facial expressions.
“What do we do now?” asked Devika, also peering into the camera.
“We have to sell our fruits and vegetables, Manya,” advised Shrishti, reminding Manya of the rules of the game.
“Yes, and how do we do that? There are so many customers and only a few of us,” said Suri.
“Let’s call them,” said Kanika, crossing her arms, as if she knew the answer all along.
At the beginning of every session, the objective was clear. For example, at the beginning of Week 2 – the children knew that we were about to sell the fruits and vegetables we had grown at the farm. Suri’s claim about the customers in the market problematized the predictability of this narrative and existed within the realm of possibility. The teacher-in-role thus carried the responsibility of making the Process Drama convincing. Once the children saw us taking the drama seriously, involving ourselves in the problem-solving, their own seriousness became reinforced. When Suri the Seller displayed her anxiety around the arrival of the customers in the market, Manya, mirrored that emotional response declaring that the customers had already arrived and were ‘in her room’. Somehow, the limitations of being in separate spaces disappeared temporarily and the elements of ‘make-believe’ came alive.
Implications of teacher-in-role
This pushed us to reflect on the dominant reactions offered by the teacher-in-role and its implications in a virtual Process Drama. One possibility could be that because Manya mirrored Suri’s anxiety, Shrishti took on the role of the advisor, reassuring the group of the task at hand and Kanika became the problem solver. These roles were assumed, and responsibility felt and shared in a matter of seconds. Moreover, Shrishti referred to Manya by her name when giving advice. While this isn’t a big achievement in the physical world, the variables are drastically different online. The Process Drama was also facilitating listening and connection building on a medium where there was no physical connection.
The collective acknowledgement of a problem led to a collective solution. Each of us proceeded to create our own ‘calls’ to attract the many customers. Kanika’s was a personal favourite as she got up, stuck her hips out towards her camera and yelled “Papaya le lo, papaya le lo!” (buy papaya, buy papaya).
This problem-solving attitude amongst the group gradually strengthened as we posed more questions to the group. Ananya, who hadn’t opened up in the initial few sessions, expressed some enthusiasm when Suri the Seller asked her to describe a fruit she’d like to grow. The posing of questions instead of answers, opened up a space for choices. According to psychologist Dr S. Gelman, when children recognize that they are active contributors to the process, they no longer feel the need to wait for the knowledge to be imparted. Ananya decided on her choice of fruit by creating different shapes with a piece of cloth. She finally wrapped up the cloth into a ball and declared to the group that she would like to grow an orange that looked like this ball. She didn’t resist the unfamiliar form (cloth) that had no direct correlation with the subject matter (fruits) but showed willingness to imagine. Our genuine curiosity about Ananya’s orange encouraged a level of cognitive and personal flexibility amongst the group who proceeded to create fruits made of cloth.
In retrospect, we realized that transitioning in and out of the role in front of the children, acted as a metaphor to enter and exit the realm of imagination and absurdity. At the end of Week 2, Shrishti asked, “Where is Suri the Seller?”, subtly declaring her desire to engage with the fictional character and their world. Maybe some comfort was derived in the familiarity that was offered by the arrival of someone she expected? Devika as the auxiliary role added an element of consistency and re-affirmed the fact that their facilitator was only ‘acting’ and eliminated any scope for deception. We believe this enabled an understanding that they could partially control the flow of events.
Use of online modalities
The teacher-in-role continued to feed the virtual Process Drama through offline activities. Following Week 2, Suri the Seller sent WhatsApp audio notes to the parents asking the children to make bowls with dough because they would need them in Bobby’s kitchen the following weekend. Thus, the teacher-in-role methodology allowed us to reference other roles, create a unified world and build the suspense and excitement for the next setting.
While the limitations of Zoom and WhatsApp aided the drama and their imagination, they also limited equal participation from all the children. While the process lent itself to collective problem-solving, on Zoom only one person could talk at a time. Devika was constantly juggling between muting and unmuting the children when they wanted to talk. As soon as the stakes of the drama were raised (like when Suri claimed that there were many customers in the market) everyone had a reaction but as facilitators we only heard a few. As part of the drama, we incorporated a hand signal (five fingers squeezed together). This action functioned as a visual cue every time someone wanted to speak but it also slowed down the pace of the drama and interrupted an active contribution from each child.
As facilitators our overarching objective of the session was to impart certain drama skills like embodiment, articulation, critical thinking, and creativity. While we struggled to always facilitate these learnings in a structured flow, through the Process Drama, the group arrived at these discoveries and actions in an improvised manner. The questions we are left with now are – how do we sustain these improvisations for the pre-primary age group, such that it continues to be more playful than instructional? How can we facilitate connections for children on Zoom without it feeling ‘facilitated’? How can we as facilitators continue to unlearn our patterns and embrace more such possibilities of this virtual, unfamiliar social space?
(The names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the children.)
References
- Aitken, Viv. “Dorothy Heathcote’s mantle of the expert approach to teaching and learning: A brief introduction.” Connecting curriculum, linking learning (2013): 34-56.
- National Research Council. How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school: Expanded edition. National Academies Press, 2000.
- Neelands, Jonothan. “Structure and Spontaneity: the Process Drama of Cecily O’Neill-edited by Philip Taylor and Chris Warner.” British Journal of Educational Studies 56.1 (2008): 112-113.
- Schneider, Jenifer Jasinski, Thomas P. Crumpler, and Theresa Rogers. “Process drama and multiple literacies.” Portsmouth, NH (2006).
Akhila Khanna is an applied theatre practitioner from Delhi. She facilitates theatre-based interventions for corporates, government bodies, non-profits, schools and universities in India, U.S. and Canada. You can read about her work and contact her on her blog,
https://bolworkshop.wordpress.com/.
Devika Bedi is an arts practitioner, educator and facilitator, living in Delhi who works with children and young people in community and education settings. She is currently in the process of understanding how arts can be used in diverse spaces to facilitate a better awareness of self, leading to more deliberate and conscious action. She can be reached at
contactdevika2020@gmail.com.
